The Banks Family and Little Women
by CozyMittens
Summary: Secrets are revealed and relationships tested when someone accidentally reveals what happened to Annabel's favorite character in a book.
1. Chapter 1

"And where would you like this Miss Banks?" asked a voice from behind her.

Jane turned and saw Angus carrying a large box containing pots and pans and assorted kitchen gadgets.

"In the kitchen just through that door," she said. "And please call me Jane."

Most of the larger furniture had been returned to the house, but there was still a considerable amount of small items and boxes that needed to be taken out of the van and brought back inside. Sorting everything out and putting it back was going to take weeks. Jane sighed in exasperation. There simply hadn't been time in the few days before the move. They had gone from room to room literally dumping things in boxes without sorting or looking. Some things had been left in the house—the piano in the library, most of the things in the attic—too large and too numerous to fit into her small flat.

The poor old piano, Jane smiled. It had come with the house and Father insisted on keeping it even though none of them knew how to play. He had arranged for piano lessons when Jane was 10 and Michael 9, but had admitted after two years of instruction and little progress that maybe the money paid to the teacher should be invested in something else.

She turned and headed into the library where Jack and Fred were helping Annabel put the books back on the shelves. "Oh look Jack," said Fred, holding up a rather tattered looking volume. "Remember this one,"

"Little Women," said Jane. "It was one of my favorites."

"Jack's too," said Fred, giving his friend a look full of mischief. "You should get him to tell you about it some time."

"Tell her about what?" asked Angus walking into the library.

"About Jack reading Little Women," said Fred.

Angus started to laugh

"Can we just change the subject?" asked Jack. His face was starting to turn red.

"No, I want to hear this," said Jane.

Angus pulled himself together and looked at Jack with mock seriousness. This was a joke of long standing. "Well, I'm sure it will cast no aspersions on his manhood but you should know Miss Banks that Jack is very sensitive. He cried when he read Little Women."

"You cried?" asked Jane looking over at Jack.

"Yeah," said Fred grinning from ear to ear, "Woke us all up bawlin'". He started to laugh and Angus joined him.

"Just stop!" protested Jack who was now completely embarrassed. "I was eleven years old!" Angus and Fred were almost doubled over they were laughing so hard. Their laughter was contagious. Jane started to giggle.

"It was sad," said Jack his voice raising a little to be heard over the laughter. "Beth died." But the other three were laughing too hard to listen.

"Beth died?" said a horrified voice. Instantly all of the adults stopped laughing and turned to look at Annabel who was standing near the window looking very pale. "But she got better," said the little girl her voice shaking. "It was Christmas and her father came home and Mr. Laurence gave her a piano."

Too late Fred looked at the book in his hand and realized there was a book mark about a third of the way through the volume. Annabel was crying now. She looked at Jane questioningly.

"Oh sweetheart, I am so sorry," said Jane and tried to put her arms around Annabel. But the little girl was having none of it. She pushed Jane's arms away. "I hate you, I hate all of you," she sobbed and ran out of the library. They saw her run up the stairs and heard the nursery door slam.

The stunned adults stood silently in the library. "Well," said Angus finally, "That wasn't good."

"I'll go talk to her," said Jane

"Do you want me to go with you?" asked Jack.

"No you'll probably just tell her Jo didn't marry Laurie and she'll never finish reading the book," said Jane as she headed up the stairs after Annabel. Which probably wasn't fair since none of the adults had realized Annabel was reading Little Women, but Jane was too worried about her niece to think clearly.

Once upstairs Jane tried the door and found that Annabel had locked it. Inside the nursery Jane could hear her crying. She knocked gently on the door. "Annabel, please open the door sweetheart. I want to talk to you."

"Go away," cried Annabel "I don't want to talk to anybody."

"But dearest, you need to open the door. Everybody's sorry about spoiling the story for you."

"I don't care about the story. I didn't want Beth to die. She was my favorite person."

"What's the matter? What's going on?" asked Michael coming down from his studio in the attic.

"It's Annabel. She's upset because Beth died."

Michael was immediately concerned and worried. "One of her friends at school." he asked.

"No, not a real person," said Jane, "Beth in Little Women."

"Oh good, that's a relief," said Michael. "I'll talk to her."

"You'll talk to her?"

"Uh huh. I've been preparing for this ever since she found that book in the library, but I didn't think she'd gotten that far into it."

"She didn't. Jack sort of spilled the beans while we were downstairs."

"Jack read Little Women?"

"Apparently, Angus and Fred were teasing him because he cried."

"Well," said Michael, "It is very sad."

"Wait, you read Little Women too?" asked Jane.

"Yes, but I was smart enough not to tell anyone. Now go on. I said I could handle this."

Jane headed down the stairs. Behind her she heard Michael knocking on the door.

"Annabel, it's Daddy," he said using the familiar form of address the children had used when they were very little, "Open the door." Jane turned in time to see the nursery door slowly open and Michael enter the room. Shaking her head she continued down the stairs.

Whatever Michael said apparently worked. Annabel appeared calm and collected at dinner and took part in the family conversation without breaking into tears more than once. She even managed to smile at Jack who had stayed behind for the meal after his two friends went home. Michael nipped in the bud John's attempt to tease her about crying over a dumb old book and told both boys he had better not hear any more about the subject. But Annabel was firm on one thing. She put Little Women back on the shelf and announced that she would never, ever read a book in which her favorite character died.

Jane was rather distressed over that. She had loved Little Women when she was a girl and had read it numerous times with her friends. She didn't want Annabel to miss out on a significant rite of passage. But Michael was unperturbed. He said that Annabel was still pretty young to be reading the book and reminded his sister that Mother had given it to Jane on her 12th birthday. Furthermore, since Jo was 14 when the story began and at least 30 when it ended Annabel had plenty of time to read it before she was older than the main characters.

"Exactly why did you read Little Women?" asked Jane.

"To impress your friends," answered Michael.

"Impress my friends," exclaimed Jane, "whatever for?"

Michael gave Jane a look that clearly said she must be mad to ask such a stupid question. "Come on Jane," he said, "think about it. I'm only a year younger than you, but there you were with your all your friends thinking of me as the little brother. Helen was beautiful and Kate was, well Kate was amazing. And I was 13 years old and going slightly insane because they were always here in the house and they thought I was just some pesky little kid."

"Then Kate's brother came home on leave at Christmas and he pulled me aside for a man to man talk. He said girls were impressed when a fellow liked the same things they did. He said I should figure out what Helen and Kate liked and learn about it and then, you know, casually bring it up in a conversation. So I decided to read everything that you were reading."

"How did you know what we were reading?"

"Bedroom right next door, remember?" said Michael. "I could hear all three of you giggling and talking through the wall. Just one more reason I was going mad with Kate and Helen just a few feet away from me every other weekend."

"Poor Michael," said Jane. "I never realized."

"Well, so I read Little Women but you were sort of getting past that. So then I read Sonnets of the Portuguese, Idylls of the King, Romeo and Juliet. Kate was very impressed and Helen thought I was sweet and sensitive."

"I had no idea you were so devious," said Jane. "Did you ever tell Kate?"

"I did," said Michael, "but by then she thought I was wonderful and she was touched that I took the trouble to read a book that she liked."

"It just makes me wonder," said Jane, "why Jack read Little Women."


	2. Chapter 2

"So he could read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," said Angus sliding out from under the kitchen sink.

During the course of the move Michael had realized that Jack and his friends had skills that he had never acquired, especially in regards to repairs in old houses. Michael had asked Angus if he would have a look at the pipes in the kitchen. Michael would pay for any materials and compensate Angus for his time at a price that was fair but still less than what he would pay a plumber. Jack had volunteered to come along to help, and Jane had fortuitously stopped by to see her brother. Observing this happy coincidence Angus had casually suggested that Jack and Miss Banks might go to the hardware store to pick up supplies and sent them off with a fairly extensive list. Michael took advantage of their absence to ask Angus why Jack had read Little Women and why it was such a joke between Angus and Fred.

"Well you see," said Angus, "the books in the library were arranged by age level and the librarian was very strict. You were only supposed to read the books that were in your section. Jack wanted to read Jules Verne but his books were in the 13 and up area. Fred and I were happy to wait two years but Jack wasn't having it. He pestered the librarian so much that she made a deal with him. If he read every book in the 10 to 12 year old shelves he could move up and read the books in the next level. There must have been about 80 books but he decided he was going to read every one, even the girl books."

"One night I woke up and I could hear Jack crying in his pillow. He had sneaked a candle into the room and was reading in the dark. So I wanted to know what was wrong and he wouldn't tell me and then I got sight of what he was reading. I made a few remarks about crying over sissy stuff and he got angry and gave me a black eye. So I gave him a bloody nose and pretty soon Fred and Cyril and Andy were all in on it and we had quite a dust up going on until one of us hit Cyril and knocked a tooth out. And that quieted us all down because none of us could remember if it was a baby tooth or not. Then Bert came into the room because we had woken him up and he was angry about Cyril's tooth and Jack having a candle because it was dangerous." Angus paused, smiling at the memory.

"I can't imagine Bert angry," said Michael

"Well he didn't get angry like my da did. Nobody got hit or yelled at, but you could tell he was pretty upset. So we had to clean everything up and Jack wasn't allowed to read except for school work for a whole month—because he'd pulled that stunt with a candle before and Bert was worried about fires."

"What about the rest of you?" asked Michael.

"Oh it was terrible," said Angus, with a grin. "Bert made us take turns reading Little Women out loud to each other just before bed. Fortunately, he let us stop right after part one before they all started getting married."

Michael laughed. "It sounds awful. I read it to impress a girl and the second part was definitely the worst."

"I never thought about that. I wonder if Mary would be impressed if she knew I read it. I wouldn't have to tell her I had to." (Mary was Miss Mary Smith, Angus' fiancé)

"Just be careful," warned Michael. "Jane and her friends used to talk about Little Women for hours and Kate, my wife, explained to me that you have to like the right sister."

"What do you mean?" Asked Angus

"Every girl that reads Little Women likes one particular sister and identifies with her. You have to be able to tell which sister she likes and you can get into big trouble if you guess the wrong one."

"But there were four of them. How do you know?"

"Well, you're usually safe as long as you don't guess Amy."

"Why Amy," asked Angus intrigued by this side of humanity he had never encountered (he had no sisters).

"Because Amy is shallow and spoiled," said Michael. "No girl likes to be told that Amy is your favorite sister or that you think she is like her. Any of the other three and you're safe."

Unfortunately for Jack, he was not in possession of this useful information. "You liked Amy the best?" demanded Jane as they were walking back from the hardware store. "But why?"

"Amy was the prettiest," said Jack unaware of the danger he was in, "and she was my age. All the others were way older. Plus she was talented and ambitious."

"So was Jo," argued Jane uncomfortably aware that she was three years older than Jack, which she really didn't think was _way older._ "Why didn't you like Jo?"

"I don't know. She always seemed unhappy with herself. She was always talking about being tall and clumsy and spent most of the time wishing she was a boy."

Jane, who had shot up to 5 foot 9 inches in her early teens and had spent a miserable adolescence towering over the boys her age and trying to figure out how to handle her elongated limbs without knocking anything over, felt shaken to the core. She had definitely identified with Jo March about feeling too tall and clumsy. Unlike Jo, she had never had any desire to be a boy, but she had dreaded the idea of having to wear a corset like her mother and had welcomed the shorter, looser dresses of the 1920s. She glanced down at the pants she was wearing. Jane liked pants and enjoyed the freedom of movement they gave her. She wondered if Jack, who preferred Amy and was so critical of Jo, was really as nice as he first seemed.

Oblivious to Jane's distress Jack continued. "And then she got really boring in the end. She married an old professor and became everybody's mother. And she wrote uplifting, moral stories. They couldn't have been much fun to read."

"I always liked Jo," said Jane defensively. "I thought she was a lot like me."

"Really?" asked Jack. "I don't see that at all."

"You don't?" asked Jane. She had felt so much like Jo. Hemmed in and unable to move against the tight strictures of behavior and expectations placed on women, wanting to do all the things that society said she shouldn't. "Didn't you think she was rebellious and brave and trying to change things?"

"Not particularly," answered Jack slowly. He had the vague sense that this conversation was going wrong but he wasn't sure why.

"And, and when she met Professor Bhaer," continued Jane. "It…it was a melding of mind and purpose. They were so much more suited spiritually to one another than she was with Laurie."

Jack was looking at her strangely. "You know," he said. "I never really liked Little Women. It was sad when Beth died but I was only reading it so I could get to the Jules Verne books in the library."

"That figures," muttered Jane under her breath.

Jack continued, "And I don't think you're a bit like Jo March."

"What do you mean?"

"Jo March was a square peg in a round hole. She was always fighting against expectations. The whole book is about how she learned to round off the corners and fit a little better into the hole. You would never round off your corners. The hole would either have to change to fit you or get bigger so it could hold you. And," Jack paused and took a deep breath, "you are the kind of person who would marry Laurie in a heartbeat."

Jane looked at Jack. She remembered how Laurie had been described in the book—Laurie who had been Jo's best friend and boon companion—tall with dark hair and eyes, polite for a boy and altogether jolly. Jack wasn't terribly tall, maybe a half inch taller than she was, but he was almost exactly how Jane had pictured Laurie all those years ago when she had read the book with her friends. Jack smiled at her and inadvertently she thought about Mr. Weber who had taught German at her grammar school, pleasant, middle aged and very serious. The contrast was so extreme that she had to choke back a laugh. Jack was right, she would marry Laurie in a second. She wasn't a bit interested in a spiritual union, she wanted something much more fun.

Jack was relieved to hear Jane laugh. Somehow the bag carrying the hardware supplies shifted to Jack's right side and Jane's hand was tucked in the crook of his left arm. They walked companionably down the street heading back to Cherry Tree Lane. "I'm beginning to think that Little Women is a dangerous book for girls," said Jack.

"Why?"

"You all seem to take it so seriously."

"I suppose we do. Kate's favorite character was Meg. She always wanted to grow up and have boy and girl twins."

Jack winced. "You don't suppose it's prophetic. You grow up to be like the March sister you like the most."

"You just got done telling me that I wasn't a bit like Jo."

"Yes, but what about Annabel. Aren't you a little worried that her favorite character is Beth. Not that I think she'll die or anything but Annabel doesn't have a shy bone in her body. What does she find so appealing in sweet, timid little Beth?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Because she's brave," said Annabel.

Jack had finally found an opportunity to apologize to Annabel for ruining Little Women for her. Though he didn't think it was his fault he still felt bad about what had happened. It didn't hurt that he had scoured the book stores looking for another story for her to read by the same author and had presented her with Eight Cousins, in which he assured her no one had died. Since the apology seemed to have gone well, he decided to risk asking why Beth was her favorite sister.

"Brave? I never thought of her as brave," said Jack. "She was like a little mouse, always in the corner and never wanting to be away from her family."

"Oh but she was brave," said Annabel. "She was so scared to go over to Mr. Laurence's house and play the piano, but she finally did and it took all the courage she had. None of the others was scared like Beth. They just went off and did stuff but Beth had to brave all the time."

Jack was surprised. It was a remarkably perceptive observation from a ten year old and one that he had never considered.

Tears were forming in Annabel's eyes. "I wanted her to find a friend, you know like Jo did with Laurie, and she'd grow up and be a concert pianist or something. I didn't want her to die."

Jack fished out his handkerchief and handed it to Annabel wondering why he had been stupid enough to bring up the subject of Beth when things were going so well. Michael was never going to let him back in the house if he kept making his daughter cry.

"Sounds like you would have been a good friend to her," said Jack

"Yeah, I'd have told her it would get easier the more stuff she tried and pretty soon she'd be doing all sorts of things."

"What kind of things?"

"Oh like talking on the phone and getting a plumber and going to the store by herself, and lighting the stove."

All the things you had to do after your mother died, thought Jack to himself. He realized for the first time that Annabel's confidence was not inborn. It was the result of a hard fought battle. She was so young to have gone through all that. Instinctively he put his arms around her and gave her a comforting hug. Then the last part of her sentence registered in his brain.

"You lit the stove?"

"Uh huh," said Annabel from the protective circle of Jack's arms. "Georgie needed warm milk to help him sleep. Mama always did it, so I went down after Ellen and Father were sleeping and made it for all of us."

Having children must age a person, thought Jack who felt like he'd lost 10 years of his life right now. At Ellen's request he had looked at the old stove in the kitchen. Jack was used to dealing with gas and knew that a lot of people were afraid of it, but the faulty valves in the Bank's stove had scared him to death. After turning everything off he had gotten a hold of Angus and the two of them had practically taken the stove apart and rebuilt it. His arms automatically tightened around Annabel and he fought off a mad desire to count all of her fingers and toes.

"Annabel," said Jack urgently, "you must promise me never to light the stove without a grown up in the kitchen with you."

"She'd better not be lighting the stove," said Michael as he entered the library with the boys. "None of you," and he looked at all three of his children, "are allowed anywhere near the stove without an adult in the room."

"But Jack fixed the stove," said Georgie, "It doesn't go ka-boom anymore when you light it."

"It's not supposed to go ka-boom when you light it," said Jack. "It's just supposed to light."

John was more interested in the definition of near. "If I can't go near the stove I won't be able to do my school work at the table," he informed Michael.

"Nice try," said Michael. He looked at Annabel, still encircled in Jack's hug. "I see the two of you have made up."

"Yes, Uncle Jack bought me a new book to read." She pulled away from Jack. "I'm going to go upstairs and get started." She sped happily out of the room and up the stairs. On the way she passed her aunt in the hallway.

"Annabel seems happy," Jane said coming into the room.

"Uncle Jack bought her a new book," Georgie informed her.

"Oh he did, did he," said Jane smiling. "What was it?"

"Eight Cousins," said Jack wondering if it was a good sign that the children were calling him Uncle Jack.

"Jack!," said Jane, "You didn't, not Eight Cousins!"

"Why," protested Jack. "I read through most of it. Nobody dies. I'll admit that the boys are really boring. I never saw seven boys that got into less trouble then they did."

"It's not the boys, it's Rose." Jane turned to Michael, "Do you remember when Kate and I read Eight Cousins. She came over to spend the night and we got to the part where Rose pierced her ears, so Kate and I sneaked downstairs and got Mother's sewing basket…"

"…and pierced your ears with one of her needles," finished Michael. He looked stunned.

Unconsciously, Jane touched the lobe of her left ear and Jack noticed for the first time that the earring was slightly higher than the one in her right ear.

Never, vowed Jack to himself, never, ever, ever would he buy another Louisa May Alcott book for any little girl of his acquaintance. They were far too dangerous.


End file.
